See this news piece from the CBC announcing that Joannie Rochette will skate for Canada despite the sudden death of her mother earlier this week. This courageous girl is showing the world how Canadians “own the podium”.

Go get’em, Joannie … we’re with you, kid!

3:10pm Update: I just saw this video on youtube posted by Joannie’s high school, L’Academie Les Estacades, in Trois Rivieres, Quebec. It would take me an age to try to translate this for you, but I think it won’t take long for you to get the main message, “we are thinking of you, Joannie”. Bravo Academie Les Estacades!!!!!!

Grieving Rochette faces her hardest skate

Joannie Rochette practised Sunday at Pacific Coliseum and will compete after the sudden death of her mother.(Paul Chiasson/Canadian Press)It isn’t an exaggeration, not by a long shot.

When she steps onto the ice at Pacific Coliseum Tuesday to perform her short program in the women’s figure skating competition at the Vancouver Olympics, Canada’s Joannie Rochette will face the most difficult skate of her life.

That’s because Rochette will be skating with the heaviest of hearts, as she continues to cope with the sudden death of her mother, Therese, who passed away Sunday morning in Vancouver of a heart attack. She was 55.

Therese and Rochette’s father, Normand, flew to Vancouver from their home in Montreal to see their daughter compete at the Games.

Many wondered if Rochette, of Île Dupas, Que., would even perform in the wake of her tragedy. But mere hours after her father, Normand, told her of the news, Rochette was back on the ice at the Coliseum, training, focusing.

She was set on competing, which Skate Canada confirmed in a release Sunday.

“We have received so many emails and texts, and we wanted people to know that we read everything that you are sending,” Rochette and her coach Manon Perron said in a release.

“We also want everyone to know that these messages are helping us to get through this. We are going to do it with Therese. Even though we aren’t able to respond to everyone, please keep them coming for both of us.”